Printing on paper has attained considerable commercial success in the computer industry. However, printing onto substrates such as plastics, e.g. vinyl, polyester or polyolefin, and the like, remains a technical challenge for a variety of printing techniques, especially when comparing synthetic print performance to the print quality, print integrity and adhesion commonly recognized as standards for paper substrates.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,471,757 assigned to Canon Kabushiki Kaisha discloses an ink that has a dye and a pigment. The pigment is a self-dispersant type pigment and an anionic dye in which at least one anionic group is bound on a surface of the pigment directly or through another atomic group and having a Ka value of less than 1 ml.m−2.msec−1/2 according to a Bristow method. An image having an excellent image quality is formed by using such an ink in the process of ink jet recording.
US Patent Publication No. 20020094418 discloses an inkjet recording element comprising a support having thereon in order: a) a hydrophilic, fluid-absorbing layer, and b) an image-receptive layer capable of retaining an inkjet image, the image-receiving layer comprising an open-pore membrane of a mixture of a water-insoluble polymer and a water-absorbent polymer, the mixture containing at least about 25% by weight of the water-absorbent polymer.
US Patent Publication No. 20020136868 discloses an inkjet recording medium having, on a base material, a porous resin layer containing water-dispersible resin particles B having a minimum film-forming temperature of not lower than 0° C., and water-dispersible resin particles A having a minimum film-forming temperature higher than the film-forming temperature of the water-dispersible resin particles B and having an average particle size larger than the average particle size of the water-dispersible resin particles B.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present application to provide a polymer which is capable of providing a suitable print receptive film surface or a coating vehicle suitable as an ink.
Another object of the present application is to provide a suitable composition for forming an inkjet-receptive coating on a plastic substrate.
Yet another object of the present application is to provide an article which is suitable for both solvent-based and water-based technologies.